The dominant parents’ group at GD Birla Centre for Education, which was among the three schools that shut down on Thursday over a fee row, has asked its members to individually send emails to the management requesting it to reopen the institution.
As many as 400 parents wrote emails to the school on Friday, said a representative of the GD Birla Centre for Education Parents’ Association.
No such move was evident in the two other schools - Ashok Hall Girls’ Higher Secondary School and Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar.
All three are part of the Ashok Hall Group of Schools.
The three schools, which operate out of at least seven campuses, indefinitely closed down all institutes on Thursday citing “law and order” following days of agitation at the school gates by a section of parents against fees charged by the schools.
Police have set up posts outside all the schools. "Several policemen in plainclothes have also been deployed near the schools,” said an officer at Lalbazar.
The parents who went to the schools on Friday were not allowed entry.
A parent of a student at the GD Birla school said he failed to pay the fee online. The school, however, denied having closed the online payment option.
Another parent, whose daughter was not allowed to enter the GD Birla school in the new session, said he received a call from the authorities asking him to make payment.
“A call came from the school on Friday saying that I had to pay Rs 21,000. My daughter had not received her report card and she was not allowed to enter the school when classes resumed on Monday,” he said.
Aggrieved parents, whose children have not received report cards apparently because of non-payment of fees, said they did not want the school to close down.
“This is an attempt on the part of the school management to create a rift among parents. We want the school to reopen immediately,” said Moumita Chanda Chakraborti, the mother of a GD Birla student.
“I have paid according to the high court order and yet my daughter was not given her report card. She was also denied entry into the campus. Before the start of the new session, we had made attempts to meet the school authorities but were not allowed to do so."
Sanjay Bhattacharyya, acting president of the GD Birla Centre for Education Parents’ Association, said: “We asked our members to write emails to the school and parents have written appealing to the authorities to immediately reopen the school so that children do not suffer.”
The last date of payment of fees for the first quarter of the new session is April 9 at GD Birla Centre for Education and April 20 at Mahadevi Birla Shishu Vihar for the first quarter of the new session.
